Seattle Woman builds/designs her own Tiny House

Hey! Just announced our next hands-on workshop in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We’re syked about this, it’s gonna be May 13th through the 15th RelaxShacks.com, we’ll have the details soon And a shout out to the Jamaica Cottage Shop They will be appearing with a tiny house that you can checkout, February 5th at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Mass. Hey what’s up, I’m Deek from RelaxShacks.com hanging in West Seattle on my book tour for Micro Shelters but night number one I’m staying in this super awesome tiny house, one built and designed as I understand it by – H: Hannah Crabtree! D: Yeah okay, I was going to introduce you, but H: Oh you lost it – D: Yeah! I’m too slow! So yeah give us the tour, thank you I just rolled up I’ve been in two planes, in rental cars and public transit, been looking like a zombie.

And I’m so tired, but this has brightened my day Hannah H: Well come inside! D: No I want to see the outside! Because I walk in and the first thing I see is this super awesome laser routed sign. You must have been up all night with a laser gun, you have awesome aim too. Making this thing. H: Yes! It’s our new fancy sign. Pocket Mansions And our little symbol that is supposed to be a house and a pocket. D: So I just want to get the cedar shingles here and such. D: Have you taken this on the road? H: No, no, no. D: Hell no! Hahaha H: No, no,no. I mean the shingles are this tall. So they’re not coming off. D: Oh no, I’m not worried about that, I was just wondering if you’ve had the white knuckle experience of driving, something like this – H: It was built here and it’ll live here.

D: Spec wise, how long is it? H: It is twenty feet long. D: Twenty feet long and probably just under 13′ 6″ in height? H: Mmhmm just under. Like 13′ 4″. D: Okay, so if you did want to joy ride with it – H: Oh yeah! I built it so I can move it if I need to. But, only, I have no intention of that. So there is a shed in the back.

D: You’re on a road that I won’t call it busy, but as I drove by you’re so nestled in these trees, it’s a nice little spot it kind of hides the house. H: It does hide the house and people seem to think that this is my backyard. So that works out really well. D: So you have the shed.

What’s in here? Propane? H: There’s the water heater in here and the electrical box. And the rest is just empty for storage. D: Okay very cool. Okay, let’s go inside though. I will follow you. I understand you have had a roster of pretty cool guests in here, your first stay in here was none other than – H: Dee Williams! D: Yes Dee is awesome! What’s up Dee? H: Yeah I have her official card here, so everybody knows it really happened. She signed it. D: It was real man! H: It happened! Umm yeah, so here’s the tiny house. I want to show you this part first, because it’s my favorite part. This, is this little L seat like this. But this chest is just free standing, this chest opens and it has extra bedding in there So it comes around, and then this dining table comes down, so you have your dining table or the sofa moves around, these little planks pull out and they connect to these little nuts here. So this comes around. D: So boat style, RV style. Yeah that hooks in there as well.

H: Yeah, it’s very simple, it’s just like the bed in my Dad’s camper, growing up. That we went camping in. D: Yup we had a Jayco pop-up and it reminds me of that. H: That’s what I based it off of. So that sofa swings around and this leg, is so you can have a table in your bed. If you don’t want to pull up your whole bed. D: So it’s like a 3 or 4 in 1? Kind of set up here – H: Yes! D: This cozy nook. H: This took a long time to develop, but it worked out pretty well. Oh and I brought this in here, so people could see how I designed my house, this is my house. And yeah. D: If Godzilla were touring it. H: Exactly. D: Now my favorite part, I have to say, of the house are the ceramic cupcakes, because I myself collect ceramic cupcakes, it’s something I just can’t help.

H and D: (laughing) H: I have even more! And I have the cupcake dolls. They turn into cupcakes. D: Were those from the 80’s? H: Yeah. D: Actually, I remember those. Like Strawberry Shortcake. That’s not what this video is about though. People are like, alright Deek, focus. H: Yeah those were good. So also the fireplace – D: Oh yeah that’s cool, I don’t see many of these in tiny houses. For the ambiance. H: Nope, so yeah I leave them as the lit up candles. You know for people that come for the Air Bnb, but it is a real fireplace. So if you take these off, it’s really beautiful. So let’s see if we can. (lighter clicks) D: Boom! And that was the last we saw of her house. H: I know right. D: And conveniently, just in case, a fire extinguisher. This is a nice solid door here. H: Yeah, that’s a real door, but we just cut it to be smaller. So it got trimmed, every which way from Sunday. To be a door, but yeah it’s a solid wood door.

So this lighter is dead so I can’t light these on fire for you. D: Well we believe you, we will just CGI some fire in there. H: Yeah we’ll CGI, you’ll see it – D: If the budget allows. H: You can heat the whole house with just one of those fire gels, umm, but that is not the main heater, this is the heater right here, it’s a very awesome little unit there is a fake drawer face here and I designed the cabinet to fit around this guy. D: Oh nice. H: Yeah so that’s really nice. D: Oh a little flip up table here. H: Mmhmm this guy flips up. Just to be an extension of your counter space. D: Yeah you could put a stool there, to sip your coffee or just more counter space, to work, to cook, to mix, whatever.

H: Yeah, I kind of saw this as my little desk area. I have a table, have my feet by the heater, put all my desk stuff here. Right now this is all tourist information, but that’s usually what would happen. D: I love the, I’m not trying to distract you here, but the books up here are awesome. I saw the picture on AirBnb.com and I’m like it’s so cool, because there is all these funky old school, retro throwback books and all that kind of stuff. H: Yeah I think people should stay just to read my books! So, yeah, there’s lot of stuff for people to read while they are here. My goal was to make sure all my books fit inside the tiny house. So, that’s what we’ve got going on here. Here’s the kitchen. We’ve got these, these are custom made kitchen cabinets. D: They are, right. H: That I had someone do the framework for and then I built the doors for them.

These are the little garbage and recycling cans. D: You’re so organized Hannah. H: Hah, thank you. It’s got everything in there for everybody. This is really fun. This was hard to do, to fit in there – D: Oh yeah, that’s great – H: So, now you have all your counter space. If you wanted, this is seven feet of counter space altogether. D: Okay, that’s not bad, yeah – H: I wanted to make sure you had enough space. This is more than the house I grew up in. D: That sink is pretty deep. Copper too? H: Oh yeah real copper. Hand hammered. D: That is awesome. H: Yeah, I wanted everything to be super fancy. D: Fancy, yeah. Oh more copper up here. When copper prices go back through the roof, I know where to go. H: Exactly. Yeah, I’ve got copper everywhere. These copper hooks, I just pulled out of electrical wire.

Copper pot, copper light switch plates, copper everywhere. D: I like the lighting you have up here. H: Oh yeah, it’s just LED lighting. D: Little touches like that. H: Yeah I’ll show you the other places they are around the house. They are under the stairs, which I think is one of the coolest aspect of this house. I want to show you one other place we’ve got it. Is in this little nook. So if at nighttime you want to read, you have these lights that go above there. D: Or come romance time. H: Yes, so people really like the lighting when they come in here, they don’t get a headache. And if you want a lot of light, we have this ceiling fan with these three lights on a dimmer.

So it gets really bright in here and you can dim it down. D: Now I don’t want to keep whirring the camera around and making people sick. H: Sorry. D: But, behind me and I’m going to slowly turn. I want to talk about your array of windows. When I came in, it was one of the most striking parts of the house, I think it’s great the way you kind of fitted these together. H: Right so it’s basically a wall of windows and we’ve got the two fixed windows, baby windows on the sides, just to give you as much light and air as possible. And with the two skylights here. Because I don’t want people to feel like they are enclosed, as soon as they walk into the house. D: Yeah, that’s what they are called when you order them, you have to ask for the baby windows.

H: Hahaha, they are baby windows! No, you just ask for the dimensions it’s super easy. But my favorite part is when people come into my house, I had a guy come in delivering a package, which is really fun to get packages delivered to a tiny house, and he comes in and he stops and he says “I could do this”, “I could do this” And that makes me feel really good, when people off the street come in, and immediately feel like they could live in this space. D: Yes, it’s very open, it’s very inviting. You know a lot of light colors and I like it. I’ve been in a couple that feel like you’re in some, like, coffin. I won’t name any. H: So kitchen, cabinets, I put drawers all the way to the bottom. H: So that you’ve got —– D: Use up that kick space.

H: Yeah, that would normally be the toe kick space, but I just put storage everywhere I possibly could. This is the washer and dryer combo. So it does both. It does take a long time, but I put it in here, so when come through here for my Air Bnb they can test it out and decide if they want to buy it. D: Do you like it over all? Review wise, be honest. H: No, because it shakes the house. And that feels like I’m in a boat and I get nauseous. So, that’s an issue for me. D: So run it when you’re not around? H: Yeah, run it when you’re not around, because it takes a long time, but I think it’s great for emergencies. Or if you just want somewhere to wash clothes. D: More drawers here. H: More drawers and the other thing. This is very cool, this is not just a microwave. It is an oven. So it goes up to 450 degrees. D: Is it a convection? H: Yup, it’s a convection oven.

And you can get a slightly bigger version, to actually do a chicken or a small turkey in there. So that’s really great, so you have your oven and I have a freestanding hot plate. D: Is it denatured alcohol? This is just butane. So it’s simple, doesn’t take up much space. You can do all of your cooking. So other side of the kitchen. This is probably one of my favorite parts of the house. You see that door? This is your laundry chute. D: No way! I love it. H: So you put your laundry. And then you pull this out. And then your laundry is dropped into this basket. D: See that’s fun, it’s almost like. The kid me loves the secret passage part of it. H: When my kids saw that, I’m a nanny, when my kids opened that, they said “Hannah is this a ghost hole?” So they think it’s a ghost hole. D: That’s a band name right there. H: I thought I made it to be a laundry chute. Anyway, all of these are pull outs. I’ve got outlets back there. So lots of storage.

D: You have a heck of a lot of storage here. H: Everywhere I could, you can even throw stuff up there. We built this box under the refrigerator. Which is great, so now this is actually at my height. D: Yeah, it’s working out. You don’t have to be like Quasimodo to get your milk. H: Exactly so it’s all right here. It was very hard to get this fridge on top of that box, but we did it. And it works really well, this is a really great refrigerator and freezer. There is a lot of space. Because anyone that lives in a tiny house with a dorm fridge. I don’t know what they are doing with their lives. D: Especially those little freezers where you can keep, like, one popsicle half frozen. H: I don’t know, this thing is great. And this is also fabulous. D: I’m impressed Hannah, I’m impressed. Depressed there was no beer in the fridge, but impressed with this. H: I have beer in the house, just not in the tiny house. D: I was kidding, but you do, you’re the best. H: Yes, I do have beer for you. —— D: Gold star.

H: But anyway, I keep all this in here if Air Bnb people come and they are dead to the world. They don’t want to find food, they’ve got Mac n’ Cheese, they’ve got quinoa, they’ve got oatmeal. D: Yeah, that hides so well, that’s great. H: Yeah it hides well and goes back – D: Is it just on casters or what? H: Yeah it’s got a track and it’s on casters. So it’s got both going on. D: You ain’t foolin’ around. H: I think that’s everything in the kitchen. D: I like the little tile work. That’s pretty cool, I just want to show the details. It’s really about the little stuff you’ve done in here that really makes it.

And it stands apart from some other houses I’ve seen. H: Thank you. I put a massive amount of thought into it. D: Wine glasses in the ceiling. H: Yeah they’re slowly getting broken by people. I’ll replace them. I’m not sure how you’re going to video this, but this is the bathroom. D: Just tell me what I’m seeing as I pan around. H: So the right is the shower. And if you open the curtain you can see, there is a little bench in there I personally like that for shaving legs I think that’s nice, but everyone to each their own, they can get it as just a bathtub, that’s nice too. D: It’s like an RV tub, yup. H: Now this is interesting, when you open this because, if you notice, it’s actually an optical illusion.

Even though it looks like the back is here where it hits the wall, its actually going into my shed. D: Ah that’s awesome. H: So you have enough space here to change your clothes. And have enough room to be in front of this sink. So that actually goes through the wall. D: It’d be cooler if you had like a pillowed reading fort in there. You could crawl through here like Chronicles of Narnia style. H: Yeah maybe in the next one. People really like this, this is just a bowl that I cut a hole into. So that everything could match in the brass. This is the toilet. I keep this table here in case you want to do your make up, you’ve got a hair dryer, you can set everything here, you’ve got a surface, then that lifts up. And then this lifts up. And now you have access to your toilet. This is a modified Nature’s Head Toilet. It normally has a pee jug, but I put a pipe here, so the pee goes out into the sewer system. D: Yeah, right into your neighbor’s yard, because you don’t get along with them.

H: Right! —————- D: We’re kidding neighbor, in case their watching this. H: Haha, so when this came I just thought it was so hideous so I built a box around it. D: I see the Humanure Handbook here by Joseph Jenkins. That book is pretty awesome. H: Mmhmm that’s there and here’s your sawdust. D: You have a first aid kit, you’re the best, because I hurt myself all the time. Not really, I just mean that a lot of places I go, they don’t have all the stuff you’re thinking of. H: I try to think of everything. This is the nice little pitcher. To rinse your pee down the toilet. Everything is you know very fancy. Up there, is a very important part of this house, a Panasonic Whisper Green Select Fan. That is a whole house fan, it takes all the humidity out. It has a humidity sensor, so you never have to mess with it, it takes care of it for you. D: It pumps it right into the walls right? H: Haha, no, it pumps it right out of the house! So that’s really great and you’ll see how I hid it upstairs in the bedroom.

Because obviously, it’s a huge fan. For a whole house. I think that’s everything. D: I just want to show this angle, how much natural light is here. Due on part from the skylights. You have three of them in the house? H: Yes, two 2′ x 3’s. ———- D: Those make such a difference. H: And a 2′ x 4′ upstairs. D: Even in a loft for egress. If your house is on fire, I always tell people, put a skylight in. A view, you can watch the rain, if it opens you can vent out the warm loft and if there’s a fire you get out through it, even if you throw a brick through it.

H: Yeah, they’re useful for a lot of reasons. Oh and these stairs, I left these open, one for storage and two so that your eye takes longer before it hits anything. So leaving these open, really had a lot to do with your perception of the space. D: Let’s see if I can climb up here. D: Put my camera hand into the fan blades. H: Careful, but yeah that handrail is also an important addition. I don’t really see that in tiny houses. To make sure people don’t fall off the stairs. Especially little kids. So here is the bedroom, I feel like it has everything you need. The fan is hidden over here. D: Oh in that box over there? H: Yup and I didn’t want to waste the space. So this is actually a little storage place. D: Oh cool. H: Just so I wasn’t completely, randomly, having a box there. But yeah, so closet, storage, storage. D: You have some increased headroom because of the skylight. H: Yeah, that’s also pretty great, it would be pretty hard for you to be so tall that you couldn’t sit up in bed here.

So that really, really helps. And then more book storage here. Also a shelf and another shelf up there. I put these little gooseneck lamps up here. On both sides for reading. I have these, they are cool, the USB outlets. So I have those everywhere I think a cellphone would go. By this bed, by the bed downstairs and by the fireplace. D: You are very tech savvy. I want to show these books here, because I want to plug some people I’m friends with here. Dee Williams, Holly and Bert Davis, Jay Shafer. H: And soon your book after I have it today. So if you want to re-film this part with your book, you can. D: That’s alright. H: Oh, and this I just love.

A Little House of Your Own. It’s a very, very sweet children’s book. D: Very cool, old school copy, just look at that color scheme on it. H: Yeah I love it, I used to keep it in front of the books, but it kept falling down. So now I just keep it up here. Lot’s of space up here to live and store. D: And this big ol’ window, I didn’t show that yet. H: Oh yeah, this is great. D: Not if you kick a lot in your sleep and you’re seven feet tall. H: Yeah, hah, that would probably be bad.

D: No, it’s nice though! You can sit up here, I imagine if I had a loft like this, I’d be reading books, drinking coffee, whatever, watching the neighbors go by, or shouting insults at them. H: Oh yeah, it’s great and there is space on both sides. You can set your food and your drinks or whatever. D: Don’t worry I’m not going to be eating in bed while I stay here. H: You can, I’ve got a vacuum for a reason. D: Fig newton crumbs, and taco stains everywhere. H: Hey it happens, you know I’m used to it all.

D: No, haha, I wouldn’t do that. I want to give another panning shot here because, there is so much open space here for such a tiny home. And that’s the reason it doesn’t feel so cloying. H: That’s really all about the roof lines, you can see my first roof line is a 6/12 and my second roof line is a 3/12. You are standing where the transition happens. So when you are on that second to last step you can still stand. Without hitting your head. D: Yeah, I didn’t think about that, but I didn’t have to crawl in here. H: Yeah, all that design came into play. And the last step is a double tall, double wide.

So you are kind of kneeling into bed, to again prevent the hitting your head. D: Yeah, you can sit upright, I’d be dangling my feet right there, there’s enough space. H: Yeah it’s a good place to sit. Anything else…. D: You should talk about what you are doing business wise. H: Business wise, I’m designing tiny houses! So if you like my design and you want me to design your tiny house, you can go to PocketMansions.com and that’s where I am. And you can write to me and say “Hey I like your tiny house.” “You should build me one.” D: And AirBnb.com H: Yes, if you go to my website, the first thing it says is hey “Stay in my house on Air Bnb.” And you can come stay in this tiny house, which is great, even if you don’t want me to design you a tiny house, you just want to know if you like tiny houses at all.

It’s a great way to stay in one and see if you can handle that small space. D: Hopefully with this video, we’ve shown pretty much everything to get a feel for it. This place is pretty awesome. Congratulations. H: Yeah, I have lots of families that come. And they leave really funny comments, about that they are much closer as a family now. They’ve all stayed in this tiny space. So it’s a good opportunity to come and see if you like it. D: Cool, thank you so much once again.

Appreciate it. Ah the website again. PocketMansions.com D: This place is fantastic. Thanks again. I’m just going to leave the camera here until you feel really awkward. Now, just hold that a little longer. H: Haha, I can hold it for a long time..